


Errata

by papofglencoe



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games (Movies)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-10-29
Updated: 2015-10-29
Packaged: 2018-04-28 17:27:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,463
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5099162
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/papofglencoe/pseuds/papofglencoe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Katniss Everdeen has made a lot of mistakes. So why should he be any different?</p><p>"Half of his downturned face is concealed, but I would know that hair and build anywhere. As he folds his collar back down, he casually looks up, and his piercing blue eyes land on me and freeze. </p><p>My heart settles into a more comfortable rhythm as I look at him. But I know with certainty that I’ve found my mark. Him. I’m going home with him."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Errata

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: Modern AU Everlark. Rated Explicit for pervasive language, sexual situations, and substance abuse.
> 
> The Hunger Games belongs to Suzanne Collins. Lyrics by Johnny Cash.
> 
> With thanks to muttpeeta and posthungergamessyndrome for guiding me through the land mines in my brain and to dandelion-sunset, jennagill, myusernamehere, and joshs-left-earlobe for betaing, pre-reading, and keeping me honest(ish). All mistakes and misdeeds are mine.

_“And I heard, as it were, the noise of thunder. One of the four beasts saying, 'Come and see.’ And I saw. And, behold, a white horse.”_

 

There’s a tattoo on my body for every guy I regret fucking. Each mistake forms a link in a chain that winds around my torso, holding in my guts.

It’s a long chain. I’ve given up trying to count the links, and every time a guy I’ve slept with asks me what the tattoo is for, I know he’s just another mistake I’ve made, just tomorrow’s link.

I got my first tattoo when I was thirteen, a shoddy homemade affair that’s more scar than ink, the pale jagged lines the souvenir of a shaky hand. My best friend Gale Hawthorne gave it to me, before I even had the chance to put my shirt back on. As he pressed the needle to my bare flesh, he never once touched me. Never looked at my breasts, still concealed under my thin white cotton bra. He knew, even then, it had been a mistake, and it wasn’t one we ever made again.

I’ve made plenty without him.

The bar is standing room only, jam-packed with college kids home from school and middle-aged men desperate to sneak in a few rounds before they’re forced to spend “quality” time with their families, bored as shit and stealing glances at the TV as they shovel down their Thanksgiving dinners. The jukebox spews out tunes no one bothers to hear, an all-Michigan mix, as if civilization ceases to exist the instant you drive across the Ohio border. Kid Rock. Bob Seger. The White Stripes. Eminem. Motown. Iggy Pop, when I’m lucky. And, for some reason, Journey… for mentioning Detroit the one time, I guess, but then that’s all it takes for these people to love you.

We’re so starved we’ll take what we can get.

It’s our favorite dive, a looming cinderblock building painted a garish green with interior walls covered in tatty wood panelling, cheap sports paraphernalia, and neon signs advertising Stroh’s- pisswater that passes for beer but that we love, anyway, because once they made it _here_. The bar hasn’t been redecorated since the mid-70s, and whereas the locals have frequented the place for decades, it’s only been the past few years that all the irony-obsessed hipsters have begun to flock here in droves. The Hob on Woodward, it’s called, but no one refers to it by its full name anymore. We call it the “HOW.”

We’re tucked into a wooden booth in the back corner, and while my friends are nursing their beers and gabbing amiably about tomorrow’s game against the Eagles, I’m already on my third Captain and Coke. Restless and bored, I’ve tuned out their banter. I could give a fuck about football.

This semester has been busting my ass, and what I’d really like to do over Thanksgiving break is find a way not to feel so tired and numb all the time. I know what I’m doing. It isn’t exactly anything new. If I’m being honest, I know that I’m priming myself to make another mistake… and not just a lousy mistake, or a cheap one, not one that I can shake off in the morning with a few Extra Strength Tylenols and pretend I don’t completely hate myself. No, I’m going to make myself hurt.

Tonight I’m going to make a spectacular, catastrophic mistake.

My eyes scan the crowded room for prospects. I already know the “how,” “what,” “when,” and “why,” but what I need to figure out is the “who” and, from there, the “where.”

Is it the tall, lean guy with scruffy hair and a booming voice who’s lounging over at the bar, flirting nonchalantly with some sleazy blonde he’s just met? Is it the guy playing pool who bears a vague resemblance to Tom Hardy (if someone had smashed in Tom Hardy’s face with a baseball bat)? Is it one of the paunchy but snuggly-looking shop rats sitting in a circle pounding their Miller Lights, chortling, I think, over tales of their high school glory days? Or is it one of the three douchebags hogging the dartboard?

No.

Boring. These options are boring, the same as ever. There’s no challenge or intrigue or wonder to any of them. We all lead the same tedious, repetitive lives, waking up to squawking alarms at 6 a.m. and dragging our corpses groggily out of bed. We make our coffee, trying to stave off the chill that has lodged itself in our bones. We shamble into jobs we hate, punching the clock, and then, at the end of the day, when our spirits have been ground into dust we find ourselves here, drinking away the boredom of our lives in this place, in this broken-down town.

The waitress swings by our table, and although she can’t be older than nineteen or twenty, she’s prematurely aged. Her hair is lank, her skin sallow, and she is, to put it bluntly, _very_ pregnant. She’s new here, and I don’t know her name yet. But by the bags under her eyes and the way she’s teetering on her tired feet, I can’t imagine I’ll need to bother learning it. This place goes through waitresses faster than a teenage boy goes through a box of bedside tissues. I’m not an affectionate person, generally, but I want to hug this girl and tell her everything is going to be all right, even if it’s a lie. She looks like she could stand to be lied to, like a little reassurance would go a long way.

I order a fourth drink. If I’m going to be depressed, I might as well do it in high style.

“Woah, easy there, Catnip,” Gale says, laughing nervously and sliding my nearly empty glass away from me and toward Thresh, tonight’s unlucky dd. Gale’s seen this game a few times before, and he’s probably hoping there’s something he can do to stop me from playing it. Despite the pet name and his sweet but inept attempt to separate me from my alcohol, I know there’s not a damn thing he, or anyone else, can do. His steel gray eyes dart across the table and lock on those of his girlfriend, Rue. They nod silently to each other, and Rue stands, tugging my arm firmly as she slides out of the booth.

“C’mon, Katniss, let’s go to the bathroom,” she commands, her soft voice stern and low. She only drops my arm once I’ve stood and straightened out my dress, a black-and-white A-line that hugs the few curves I have and is intended for weather forty degrees warmer than whatever shit’s brewing outside.

I follow her slight frame into the bathroom, squeezing next to her at a sink intended for one. It doesn’t look like it’s been cleaned since the day my mother was born. Maybe not even then.

She turns to face me and demands, “What’s going on with you now?” Her eyes are the color of burnt toast, and I can’t tell where her pupils end and her irises begin. She has eyes you could drown in if you let yourself, fathomless and inviting. They tell you everything you need to know about her and nothing at all.

I look down, listlessly running my finger through a puddle of standing water on the counter. “Nothing,” I mumble unconvincingly.

Of course there is something going on. There’s _always_ something going on. This time it’s being home for Thanksgiving.

 _He_ left on Thanksgiving. Walked out–stumbled out, actually–after downing who-knows-how-many whiskeys on the rocks, got behind the wheel of his rusted K car, and none of us ever heard from him again. My mom held it together for us as long as she could, but the police never found a trace of him, and when they called off the search it didn’t matter whether he was off fucking his secretary in Mexico or lying dead in the bottom of a frozen lake somewhere. He was gone. Once she realized this, she was as good as gone, too. That left me and my little sister Prim to fend for ourselves while our mom rotted away uselessly in some bullshit semi-catatonic state that no one even bothered to explain to us.

I was eleven.

Holidays have been hard ever since, our mom reduced to a shadow the minute she hears a Christmas jingle. And this year my sister won’t be coming home from college because the airfare was too expensive. I’m alone, then, basically, with the walking incarnation of death who passes for my mom.

So yeah. There’s _something_ going on.

“It’s my dad,” I confess, trying not to let my voice shake as I exhale the word “dad.” I never talk about him, but with the alcohol I find that I can say this much. His absence is so profound and tangible it might as well be a black hole, absorbing all matter in the universe. It is a darkness that no light, nothing at all, can escape. “He left on Thanksgiving.”

Rue nods in understanding, her corkscrew curls moving in agreement along with her. “I get that, Katniss. How hard that must be for you.” She rubs my arm affectionately. “I’m sorry. But you can’t keep doing this.”

“Doing what?” I ask, feeling petulant, even if I know exactly what she means.

She squeezes my arm. “You’re not just hurting yourself, you know.”

I laugh, shaking my head and scoffing at her. “ _They_ don’t care.”

She doesn’t laugh. “I’m talking about us,” she says, suddenly impatient. “Your friends. _We_ care.” She crosses her arms against her chest in obvious agitation.

The bathroom door opens, the blonde from the bar obliviously cutting us off as she jams her hips into the narrow space between us to fluff her over-processed hair in the mirror above the sink.

Rue continues, uncaring whether Bimbo Bambi hears us. Her words cause the blonde’s eyebrows to arch in interest. “You get shitfaced, run off, sleep with some random guy, and then hate yourself in the morning. And we have to pick up the pieces. It isn’t fair to any of us. Not to you, and not to the people who love you. So I’m saying it needs to stop.”

The blonde bitch smirks, and I’d like to push her onto her smug ass right here on the filthy floor.

I shake off the thought and turn my attention back to Rue to protest, “But—”

Rue cuts me off. “No ‘buts’ Katniss. It has to stop.”

She surprises me by pushing past the blonde and throwing her arms around me in a hug. “Please, just promise me you’ll try?” she whispers, and I’m taken aback by the plea in her voice.

I nod, a silent lie. She pulls away and walks toward the door to leave, somehow convinced that tonight will be different. I tell her, “I’ll meet you out there,” and once she and Bambi leave the bathroom, I turn to take in my reflection in the mirror.

I run my fingers through my sable hair and throw it into a loose braid. I reapply my lip gloss and touch up my eyeliner and mascara. Then I look into my cold gray eyes, and their stoic resolve tells me it’s showtime.

As soon as I step out into the bar, I see the front door swing open, a crowd of half a dozen guys filtering in past the pocked wooden frame. They’re all attractive and act like they’ve just walked off the set of a frat movie. One of them, a Zac Efron type, has a Michigan ball cap on, and he veers off to join the Three Doucheketeers at the dartboard, cutting a path for the rest of them.

I stand, rooted to my spot, and watch in morbid fascination as they observe the standard custom of greeting each other with man-hugs and bro fist bumps. They laugh raucously, the sound turning me off to the point where I briefly consider giving up for the night and leaving. They might be good-looking, but they’re unbearable alpha types, and I know I’m going to need at least another three drinks before I’d even _consider_ letting one of those boisterous fuckers put his hands on me.

Then _he_ walks in, a few beats after the others.

My stomach lurches at the sight, and the only sound I can hear is deafening thunder. The room shifts infinitesimally on its axis, and suddenly everything is askew. He’s wearing a tailored navy pea coat, the collar turned up to protect his face from the blistering cold. His broad shoulders and shock of wavy golden hair are covered in a thick dusting of snow, and, as he carelessly runs his hands through it, a small blizzard tumbles to the carpeted floor.

Half of his downturned face is concealed, but I would know that hair and build anywhere. As he folds his collar back down, he casually looks up, and his piercing blue eyes land on me and freeze.

My heart settles into a more comfortable rhythm as I look at him. But I know with certainty that I’ve found my mark. Him. _I’m going home with him_.

One of his obnoxious friends, Zac Efron, I think, bellows at him, “Hey, Mellark, took you long enough. What were you doing out there, diddling your dick?” The others guffaw as if this were a brilliant joke and not the most asinine comment made in one of the most asinine places on this entire asinine earth. It should set some new record for banality.

Reluctantly, he pries his eyes away from me and turns to his friends, sauntering up to them as if we hadn’t just eyefucked each other from across the room. Peeling his coat off his solid frame, he hangs it on the back of a chair and starts to converse with his friends, his wide, muscular back turned to me.

Ignoring my friends, I drop my purse at our booth and walk up to the bar, grabbing a spot on a stool. Suddenly my legs feel decidedly not up to the task of holding up the rest of my body.

I haven’t seen him since Berkley High. He was two grades and about four castes above me then: popular, funny, captain of the wrestling team, first-string quarterback (I feverishly remind myself I do not and have never given a fuck about football). From the way he looks and the way he’s dressed, it doesn’t seem like much has changed in the intervening years. I’m still not girlfriend material for a guy like that. But I could be one hell of a fuck buddy.

As I down another drink, wilfully staring straight ahead and resisting the temptation to glance over my shoulder, I can sense a body sidle next to me. It’s a man’s body, solid and warm, and even though I’m surrounded by men, the proximity of _this_ man makes the hairs on my arm stand up. I still don’t look at him, and I force myself to take another gulp of my drink.

His voice cuts through the din. He’s never actually spoken directly to me before, and his voice is deeper than I remember, raspier. “Katniss Everdeen, I’ll be damned. I didn’t expect to see your face again.”

I nearly choke on the amber liquid searing its path down my throat. _Holy fuck_. He remembers my name.

I swivel my stool to face him, my crossed knees brushing against the side of his hip, effectively trapping him between my legs and the bar. He leans against the bar, a wide and easygoing smile on his face. He’s so close that even in the dim light I can see his soft freckles, his impossibly long eyelashes, the slight hint of a cleft to his chin. I wonder if, at this distance, he can see I’m dead inside.

My smile matches his. “Hey. How’ve you been?” I ask him casually, as if we were old friends catching up after one of us has returned from a lengthy sojourn abroad, like I’m well-acquainted with his life story, all his quirks and predilections, and what I want is just to bullshit about nothing at all. Secretly, my heart is racing, and I’m thinking that one more drink would do me a world of good.

He shrugs nonchalantly and signals to Cinna, the bartender, that he’d like to order us another round. “Oh, I can’t complain.” He doesn’t ask me how I’ve been, I notice, and I don’t volunteer the information. “Haven’t seen you in here before,” he continues, picking up the whiskey on the rocks Cinna slides his way and taking a long pull of liquid from the glass, making a satisfied smack of his lips as he places it back down on the bar.

“I’ve been here,” I say, “not so much lately, though.”

He takes the bait and asks, “Why’s that? Where’ve you been?”

I smirk and tell him, “I’ve been… around.” My answer works on a couple levels, and it strangely pleases me to tell him, this early, that I’m going to fuck him. I press on, “I’ve been in Ann Arbor the past few years. I don’t come back that often.”

He chuckles and gives a coy half-smile, looking over his shoulder as if to say to the strangers in the bar, ‘Have you heard this crap?’ Instead he makes an affectionate sound of dismissal, something like a “Pshh,” and adds, “Ann Arbor isn’t even an hour away. Sounds to me like you’re trying to stay away.”

I laugh and nod, and when I do, I notice his eyes sparkle mischievously. “Maybe,” I say. “But can you blame me?”

He doesn’t answer. He doesn’t have to. “So what are you doing in Ann Arbor?” he asks. “Working on a PhD by now?”

He doesn’t mean this as a rebuke, and I try not to take it that way. It’s not that I’m an academically disinclined or challenged sixth-year undergraduate. I’ve had to pay my own way, and sometimes that means life doesn’t start when you want it to, or how you want it to.

“I worked a couple years after high school to save money,” I explain, shrugging off some of my bitterness. “But I’m planning to graduate this year.”

He smiles, as if to convince me that no slight had been intended. He has a persuasive smile, so I allow myself to relax into it. “Nice,” he replies, “What are you studying?”

I take a swig of my drink and answer him. “Music.”

I glance at him and can see his brows furrow, even though he tries to act impressed. To his infinite credit, he doesn’t ask what I’m going to do with that degree, even if the question is painted across his face. He diverts the subject back to himself, probably to avoid having to make an awkward or insincere comment. “Well ‘Go Blue’ and all that, right?“ he says with a mixture of pride and laughter. “I’m a Wolverine, too. Graduated last year.”

I cock my eyebrows in surprise, having genuinely not known this. “Oh yeah? I never saw you around campus. What did you study?”

He looks slightly smug, but maybe that’s just me. “Law.”

That would be why I hadn’t seen him around. His haunt was the law quad, and it’s about as preposterous to say that we went to the same school as it would be to say that Hogwarts is Sweet Valley High.

“Well, that degree should come in handy,” I quip, instantly wincing. Shit. I can’t believe I just said that. Is that the kind of thing you ever say, much less in a bar when you’re trying to get in someone’s pants? I mean, we all know the Mellark family is notoriously fucked up. One of the three brothers is already on his third marriage, the other is a junkie, and that doesn’t even touch on their monster of a mother, who is basically the reason personal protection orders were invented. None of this is exactly something you signal broadcast to a hundred and fifty of your closest friends in a crowded bar.

“I’m sorry—” I start to say, but his smile cuts me off. It’s kind and reassuring, and nothing about it suggests he is offended.

He gives a short but sincere laugh, maybe to put me at ease. “Don’t worry about it,” he says. “You’re probably right.” He changes the topic again, clearly comfortable with his powers of conversation, which makes one of us. “Anyway,” he says, “ever check out Good Time Charley’s?”

This is an interesting question, and it leaves me wondering if maybe he’s too clever by half. He’s asking about the bar at South U and Church, which isn’t exactly off-the-grid, being in the heart of Central Campus. No undergrad hasn’t gotten plowed there at least once per semester. I smirk because I think I know what he’s really asking me. So with a sly wink, I tell him, “Oh, a few times.”

He winks back, and we fall into a pregnant silence, each downing our drinks to avoid moving our mouths, and he gestures to Cinna for another round.

So far I’m not especially impressed with this conversation. But he’s earnest, and he definitely _looks_ the part, so I continue to play along. My eyes dart to the menu on the bar, and I consider ordering food to give my mouth something else to do.

His eyes follow mine, and he asks enthusiastically, “You hungry? I mean, _I’m_ hungry. I could go for a little something.”

I smile at this show of boyishness. He looks like he has zero percent body fat, but he also looks like a guy who can pack the food away. “Sure,” I say with a small smile. “I could eat.”

When Cinna hands us our drinks, he orders some sliders and fries, telling me we can share. I’m not generally a fan of guys ordering food for women, but since it so seldom happens that a guy actually wants to buy me food, I don’t balk.

With a few drinks in him and half a dozen in me, our conversation becomes easier, looser. We chat about ordinary things while we wait for our food: old teachers, our favorite haunts in Ann Arbor, my little sister, our favorite movies. He’s easy to talk to, relaxed, comfortable in his own skin, and funny as hell. Maybe it’s the alcohol, but I find myself laughing, too loudly, at half the things coming out of his mouth. As we chat, he drapes his arm across the back of my chair, and when he does it, it feels like he’s staking a claim on me. It’s oddly erotic, feeling claimed. I lean against it, letting his muscled forearm rest against my back. He seems arrogant and overconfident, sure, but I’m hoping it translates to him knowing his way around the bedroom. In my experience it doesn’t always work that way, but when it does, it’s a splendid time.

When our food arrives, I stick to the fries, letting him plow through the sliders. As we eat and chat, I decide to advance the game. I’m not fishing for a date, since I know there’s no chance of that, but I’m determined that tonight ends in him between my legs. I drag a fry along my lower lip in a way that would appear unconscious but is deliberately intended to imply that I want to suck his dick.

His eyes fall to my mouth, and I notice him uncomfortably shift his weight. He licks his lips and clears his throat, and, when he notices his buddies have taken up residence at a bartable and that the dartboard is empty, he asks hopefully, “Any good at darts?”

I’m a whiz at darts and can hit the bullseye every time, but I shrug noncommittally and give him an affable, girly smile to disarm him. “Sure,” I say. “Just give me a sec to check in with my friends. Meet you over there?”

He grins and nods, grabbing our drinks and heading over to the dartboard to claim it. Feeling more than a little drunk, I gingerly slide off the stool and head back to the booth where my friends have been pretending not to watch me. They suspiciously avert their eyes when I approach, their sudden silence and the flush on Rue’s face betraying them.

I laugh. “Subtle, guys. Real subtle.”

Gale looks up at me and then over toward the dartboard. “You really gonna do this, Catnip?” he asks warily. When he sees the scowl on my face, he amends his question, waving his hands in front of him emphatically as if to dispel any misunderstanding. “Look, I know you’ve always had a thing for _Mellark_ , but…” he points over to the dartboard, uncaring whether or not he’s seen. “Is _that_ how you want to go about it?”

Shrugging, I retort, “Why not?” I glance over at the dartboard, and when our eyes lock on each other, he gives me a crooked and welcoming grin, pulling a final dart off the board and holding it up toward me, waggling it as if to say “let’s play.”

And the thing is: it’s a game I really want to play.

“Look,” I sigh, “don’t stick around on my account. I’ll see you guys later, all right?” I can see how skeptical they are, but since no one argues with me, I grab my coat and bag from the booth and walk over to the dartboard, dropping them on an empty chair near Douchebags ‘R’ Us.

“The game’s ‘01,’ Single In. Ladies first,” he says, holding the darts out to me in his broad hands. I take the darts, allowing my fingers to trail along his palm as I scoop them up, his hand curling around mine in response.

He squeezes my hand briefly and then releases it, backing a few steps away so that I can throw the darts from behind the oche.

Breathing slowly, I focus on the board and envision my dart sailing directly to its mark. I hit the triple 20 with my first dart, even though I’m so drunk I’m fairly confident I can feel the world spinning on its way around the sun. My initial reaction is to tease him flirtatiously about my ability to kick his ass at this sport, but when I look at him, I notice he looks more than slightly put out. _What a shame_ , I think.

I hadn’t expected him to be insecure or competitive, but since I don’t want our night to end, I decide to dumb it down for him. “Beginner’s luck,” I demur, feigning humility and hoping he buys into my lousy acting. My next two darts don’t even hit the board, and I giggle sheepishly. “See?” I say, pointing to the darts lodged in the wood paneling.

Might as well start hating myself sooner rather than later for what I’m about to do tonight.

I dislodge the darts and hand them to him, purposely brushing against his body as I pass him, my breasts glancing against his arm. I do this every turn, and on the third pass, he reaches his hand out and captures my waist, halting me. He stoops down and ghosts his lips against mine, murmuring, “For luck.” He looks at me through heavy-lidded eyes, and I press my lips once more to seal the unspoken promise.

Taking aim, I toss the dart and hit a bull’s eye. “You must be my lucky charm,” I tell him, winding one arm around the back of his neck, pulling gently at his hair.

His eyes roll back before they close. “But I’m winning,” he says, his voice low and hoarse. “So what does that make you?” He wraps one arm around my shoulder and the other around the small of my back, and I’m thankful for the way he pins me to him, steadying me on my feet.

I can feel his hard length pressing against my stomach, so I lean up and whisper into his ear. “You tell me. Are you feeling lucky, Mellark?”

When I slink back down to rest on the soles of my feet, my breasts dragging against his chest along the way, I notice his darkened expression. His hands drop to the swell of my ass and grasp me, his face falling to my neck. He kisses behind my ear, making his way down to the crook, where he nibbles the skin and then pulls it into his mouth, gently sucking.

I’m glad the bar is so crowded and noisy that no one can hear me moan.

As he holds me tightly to him, my hand drops to the bulge in his pants, and I palm him through the fabric. He whispers in my ear, his breath hot, “Any chance you want to go back to my place?”

He’s to the point, and I respect that. I nod and smile at him, his expression matching mine. He grabs my hand firmly and leads me over to our coats. The skin of his hand is hot and callused, and I want to feel the rough flesh as it roams over my body. I ache to be touched.

As we’re putting on our coats, I hear Zac Efron give a loud wolf whistle from his spot over at the table. “Get some, Mellark,” he hoots.

“Shut the fuck up, Cato. We’re only heading out because we’re sick of being around you fucking losers,” he says.

It’s not the wittiest retort, but it is sweet, so I give his hand a thankful squeeze.

“Sure, Mellark,” this Cato (whatever his name is, he’s a total dick) guy laughs, unfazed. Under his breath, but still loud enough for us to hear, he mutters, “Just be sure to put a rubber on it so you don’t get the clap or some shit.”

I can feel his body tense next to mine, but with my free hand, I squeeze his upper arm and assure him not to worry about it. I’m used to dealing with assholes. “I can handle it,” I promise, laughing lightly.

He looks down at me apologetically. “I’m sorry about my friends. They’re assholes when they’re drunk.” We both chance another glance at them before we walk out the door. They’re pounding their third round of Irish Car Bombs. “Okay,” he amends. “They’re _always_ assholes, but they’re worse when they’re drunk.”

“Forget it,” I say, and he drapes an arm around my shoulders as we walk out into the darkness of the night.

Compared to the din of the bar, it’s eerily quiet, and through the ringing in my ears, I can almost hear the sound of the falling snow as it lands languidly in fat clumps on the pavement. The flakes are massive, and within seconds they cover us–our hair, shoulders, eyelashes. He looks down at me and grins puckishly, using his thumb to swipe a snowflake off my cheek.

He scans the parking lot as if he could spot my car. “Did you drive?” he asks, “because I live just a couple blocks away if you’re okay walking.” He looks down dubiously at my outfit, at my ridiculously bare legs and high heels.

“I’m good to walk,” I reply, not even feeling the stinging air as the heat of the alcohol courses through me.

As we trudge through the snow, he keeps his arm around me and rubs my shoulder as if to warm me. I stagger and slide on the unshoveled sidewalk as we move along, and every time I almost topple over, he catches me and holds me tighter.

We don’t flirt or laugh. Or even try to talk. The air between us is electric as we make our way slowly back to his house. The only sounds that break the silence are my clicking heels, the whir of a car engine as it crawls along Woodward, the humming of the sodium streetlamps, the hissing snow as it dies on the street.

After several agonizing minutes and what feels like an eternity crossing an arctic tundra, we approach a blue mid-century bungalow. His house is on Panem Lane, one of the nicer streets in town, and I notice that his house numbers are on elaborately hand-painted tiles. I want so badly to ask him where he got those.

As we walk up toward the front stoop, he drops his arm from my shoulders to fetch his keys from his pocket. When he releases me, I lose my balance on the slick sidewalk and reach out for him, clasping the lapels of his coat as I try not to fall.

I take him down with me on my way, landing solidly on his chest as he falls into a deep snowbank on his lawn.

We both start laughing immediately, partially from exhilaration and nerves, but also just because we’re both stupidly drunk.

Looking down at him, I admire the sharp lines of his face, his strong jaw, the way the corners of his eyes crinkle as he smiles. I can feel him beneath me, the hard lines of his body, his stomach muscles flexing as he laughs, and I can’t wait to see him naked over me, pinning me down to the mattress. Our smiles disappear the second I lean down to kiss him.

This kiss isn’t like those in the bar. This kiss is needy and fervent. I suck his lower lip into mine and bite, and he hisses and bucks his hips up involuntarily. His tongue traces the seam of my mouth, and he lifts his hand to my face, his thumb pulling down on my lip to part my mouth. His tongue meets mine, deftly caressing it. He tastes like burgers and beer and something else vaguely foodsy I can’t quite pinpoint–something like cinnamon toothpaste, maybe.

His hands fall to my thighs and drag a path upward beneath my dress, making me gasp at the sensation of his frozen fingers on my warm flesh. I break away from our kiss to chide him, but he just smirks up at me as his hands continue to roam, reaching the bare skin of my ass. He fondles it gently and then hooks his thumbs in the thin fabric of my thong, sliding it down just enough to press his fingers fleetingly to my center.

His touch is so cold it burns like fire, and I grind against him as I groan in agony.

He licks the shell of my ear and whispers, “Let’s get you inside.”

I nod eagerly in agreement and roll off him into the snow, gazing up at the thick covering of clouds glowing from the light of the hidden moon. As I lay there, my body thrums with desire. It clicks and clacks like my heels, it whirs like an engine, it hums like the streetlights, it hisses as I die.

He stands carefully and then reaches out for me, lifting me with ease, holding me steady in his arms while I regain my equilibrium. His breath is so deliciously warm on my neck that it makes my skin break out into goosebumps all the way down to my toes.

We step into a small entranceway that leads to a formal front room. Through the darkness, I can tell the room is spartanly furnished. It looks like some hybrid between college apartment and bachelor pad, like an IKEA showroom–clean and spare and completely devoid of personal effects. Anyone could live here, or no one.

He turns to me and says, “Let’s try to keep it down, all right?”

For some reason this strikes me as funny, so I laugh and ask why, but I receive no reply and, when his mouth latches onto mine again, sloppily and eagerly kissing me, the question is promptly forgotten.

With our lips still attached in a series of increasingly messy kisses, he kicks his shoes off and slides out of his coat, dropping it onto the floor carelessly. We break for air, panting and breathless, and when we do, he stoops down to the ground and slips off my heels one at a time, dragging a hand upward along my ankle and calf. I lean heavily against him for support, and when his hand reaches my upper thigh, he teases me over the fabric of my underwear. I nearly collapse onto his shoulders. I’m so dizzy.

“Oh fuck,” I moan as his finger draws circles over my clit.

He stands up to full height, his pale skin flushed pink, and slides my coat off my shoulders, tossing it onto the couch across the room. Then we stand there, motionless, not touching, as we stare at each other through the velvet darkness of the unlit room. Our breaths are labored, our faces dark.

“Do you need any water or anything?” he asks me in a hushed tone, his voice thick with want.

I can’t find my voice at all. I shake my head once, emphatically. What does it matter if I drink water or not? I’m going to hurt in the morning, anyway.

“C’mon then,” he says, taking my hand and leading me down the hall. He stops at the first closed door on our right and opens it, the door protesting noisily on its hinges. He hitches a thumb over his shoulder to a door behind us. “The bathroom’s that way,” he whispers. “In case you need it later.”

When he flicks on the light switch, I see a set of narrow carpeted stairs leading to the attic master bedroom.

“Looks steep. Hope I don’t break my neck,” I observe, mostly to myself.

He chuckles softly and faces me, wrapping his arms around my waist. Before I realize what’s happening, he hoists me over his shoulder like I’m nothing more than a rag doll, and he begins to ascend the steps, playfully smacking me on my ass as he climbs.

I laugh and pretend to struggle, but my fists have no fight behind them and bounce uselessly off his back. When we reach the top, he continues to hold me like this, walking across the room and tossing me down with a grunt when we reach his bed. Landing on the soft mattress, I laugh, and he climbs down on top of me, hovering above me as he tickles my ribs. I squeal and squirm, and every time I try to escape his hands, I feel his fingers dig in harder.

“You’re so beautiful when you laugh,” he says, and the earnestness of his words makes me suddenly stop. He’s not supposed to say things like that.

And definitely not on a night like this. I look up at him, into those magnetic blue eyes, and I’m suddenly worried that I’m not the only one I’m going to hurt tonight. He rests his forearms on each side of my head and dips his head down to kiss me. His mouth is warm, his kiss urgent, and my body feels so cold and empty that my hands reach out for him, pulling his weight down onto me. When his hard-on rubs against my core, I moan into his mouth, clawing at his broad back, anywhere my hands can reach. “I want you,” I tell him.

He groans in response and rubs himself against me, the friction heating my shivering body.

Lifting himself up far enough to reach underneath my dress, he pulls impatiently at the fabric of my panties. I lift my hips so that he can slide them off me, kicking them off as they gather around my ankles, and then I sit up and lift both my arms. He slips my dress over my head and sits back, taking in the sight of my nearly naked body.

His hands reach out to me, tracing the lines of my tattoo. “What’s this for?” he asks, and my heart drops.

“Nothing,” I answer, my fingers making short work of his shirt buttons. I slide his shirt off his shoulders, and then, after I climb onto his lap, straddling him, I clutch the hem of his white undershirt and yank that over his head, too.

I gaze down at him, soaking in the sight of his muscular chest and abs, my hands dancing lightly across the planes of his body as if to memorize it by touch. Light blond hair peppers his chest, growing shades darker the lower it reaches. The fine hair below his navel is a muted brown, and I rub my palm there, relishing the feel of his stomach muscles as they tighten to my touch. I can feel his cock twitch beneath me.

His hands expertly unhook my bra, and then, one strap at a time, he lowers the fabric off my shoulders and drops it to the floor. I wrap my arms around his neck and press my breasts to his body, deliberately grinding against his erection to release some of my pent-up tension. He moans and lowers his head to play with my nipples, flicking and swirling his tongue lazily against them.

This doesn’t last long enough. He grabs my hips and swiftly but lightly tosses me back onto the bed. Quickly, as if I’d change my mind perhaps, he springs up to switch off the light. I hear the sound of his belt buckle, his pants dropping to the ground, a nightstand drawer squeaking open, the rustling of its contents, and then the tearing of a foil packet.

The bed sinks under his weight when he returns, and my legs uncontrollably tremble out of anxiety and desire.

Hovering over me, he kisses me once–too quickly–and positions his head at my entrance. He pushes himself inside me in one motion.

I gasp at the feeling of fullness. He’s big, not thick so much as long, and I can feel how deeply he fits inside me. He allows us both a second to adjust to each other before he begins to pump his hips.

I expect a measured rhythm, a sensual, building pace, but he fucks me like a piston of an engine, fast and determined and mechanically, and even though I reach out for him, he never lowers his chest back to mine. As my eyes adjust to the darkness, I can see that his eyes are squeezed shut, and he’s biting his lip hard, trying to steady his breathing.

He’s desperately trying not to come.

I lay there frozen, not sure what to do or how to help him, afraid that anything I do will only make it worse for him. He looks so pained I wonder if he’s enjoying this at all. I’m keyed up from our grinding, and I can feel my arousal slick against my thighs, but I know there’s no chance I’m going to get off from this. I want to grab his shoulders and slow him down, but his body is so tense and rigid, I don’t want to touch him.

He grunts and moans, “Oh shit, oh fuck–I’m–agh,” and I can feel his cock pulsing inside me. He collapses down on top of me, and I can feel his heart pounding in his chest, the beads of perspiration pooling on his forehead.

I feel bad for myself, but I feel worse for him. That can’t have lasted but two minutes.

Without looking at me, he rolls off the bed and stands up. I see him pad over to his desk, where he slips off the condom, ties it off to throw it away, and then wipes himself off with a towel that had been laying on the floor. He glances over at me, rubbing the back of his neck, and I can’t read his expression, but he tells me in a neutral tone, “You should stay.”

Embarrassed for both of us, I sit up, curling my legs to my chest, and I can feel my unreleased desire throbbing between my legs. He can still touch me. Taste me. I want him to at least try. Or I need to leave, now, before I can’t hide what I’m feeling.

I try to protest, to say I ought to leave, but he cuts me off. “No,” he says, and now it sounds like a plea. “I want you to stay.”

His words hang in the air for several moments unanswered before he adds, “It isn’t safe out there.” He climbs back into bed and beneath the covers, opening his arms to me and murmuring, “C’mere.”

I curl up next to him, pressing my dissatisfied body against his, taking in the sound of his beating heart, and I wait for him to touch me.

But he doesn’t. He kisses the top of my head, brushing aside the locks that have sprung loose from my braid and remains silent. His thumb rubs my back in small, methodical circles, but after several minutes he stops, and I can hear his breath steady and slow.

He’s fallen asleep.

The _motherfucker_ has fallen asleep.

The rush of feelings rise in me swiftly and without preamble–resentment, anger, self-loathing, and then panic. How did I allow myself to get stuck in this situation? Why do I always do this? This isn’t the first time a guy has disappointed me in bed by focusing only on his own pleasure and forgetting about mine. In fact, in my experience it seems like most men are biologically hard-wired not to be able to think beyond the limits of their own dicks. I can’t really be mad at him; a lack of stamina can’t be something that’s been easy for him in his sex life. But I’d hoped he’d be different from the rest. And I hate myself for that, for allowing myself to feel and then admit that I’d had hopes for him.

Hope is a dangerous thing. I try not to let it too close because, in the end, it’s what hurts you the most when it abandons you.

At least he didn’t ask me to go. He gave me that much. It should be a mercy, being asked to stay. But it feels like a trap.

He rolls over, his heavy arm falling against me and pinning me to the bed. It makes me feel like I’m being buried alive under the crushing weight of all my bad decisions and regrets. A sob threatens to overtake me, but I can’t cry here, not with him laying next to me, not after what I’ve just done.

And that’s when the gravity of the situation really hits me, of what I have done and what it means, and because I don’t want to cry and am desperately afraid of falling asleep–of facing the nightmares I know will come–I slide out from beneath him. The weight in my chest feels unbearable in this room, and I need to escape it before it smothers me.

I silently cross over to one of the small attic windows to peer out into the night. The snow is tapering off, floating placidly past the streetlights. The street is covered in a thick sheen of ice, black and unyielding. It is a depopulated landscape, empty and unforgiving.

Everything is white and silent and dead. The night looks like a burial shroud, and I wish I could go out into it and be covered by it, to disappear into its cool arms, never to be seen or heard from again. I’d like nothing more than to die out there, for all this to end.

I press my hand to the chilled glass, wiping away the frost that has formed on it, and I exhale, feeling alone and trapped. There is nowhere to go.

I am a girl on fire trapped inside a cage of ice.

The light filtering through the small attic windows is enough for me to locate my underwear on the floor. I slip it back on and notice a folded t-shirt on a nearby dresser that says in thick block letters “Berkley Wrestling.” I grab the shirt and slide it over my head. It’s several sizes too large for me and is so worn that it has large, gaping holes in the fabric. It doesn’t cover much, just reaching the tops of my thighs, and it exposes glimpses of my body through the holes, but then, I realize, it doesn’t need to cover much. I only need to hide from myself.

Carefully, I slink down the stairs and find my way into the kitchen, trying out all the cabinets until I find a glass to pour myself some water. I make my way to the back of the house, using the moon’s gleam off the snow as my only guide. I pass a couple closed doors before I reach a family room, a large space that appears to be the only lived-in spot in the entire house. Even though it’s unlit, the wide sliding glass doors along the back wall and the faint glow of the television set, left on for some phantom viewer, let in enough light for me to take in my surroundings.

I see a well-worn coffee-colored leather sofa and sink onto it, grimacing as my skin makes contact with the smooth, cool fabric. Looking around, my eyes land on the television remote, and I clutch it like a lifeline and change the station, settling on some late night infomercial that I watch with the volume turned off. An insipid salesman smiles at me with artificially whitened teeth, trying to sell me some ridiculous contraption that will supposedly make me fit and healthy and beautiful and wanted. Or something. For only ten easy payments of $39.99.

The infomercial is on a constant loop, and after the second iteration, I find myself nodding off. Curling up into the soft cushions of the couch, I make myself as small as a human can be and drift off, praying that the nightmares won’t find me here.

Something wakes me later, some sudden noise, and I snap awake. Groggily, I wipe the sleep from my eyes and try to remember where I am. I’ve sobered up in my sleep, and the hangover has already begun to descend on me, but I notice that the infomercial is still playing, so I can’t have been sleeping for that long. An hour or two at most, but it feels so late that I know it’s early.

Then I see him through the frosted sliding glass doors. The scene is hard to discern through the clouded glass, but I notice that his pale blonde hair glows a faint blue from the light of the moon. He’s wearing a black hoodie and sweatpants now, and he sits on a lawn chair with his back turned to me, motionless, for what seems like a long time. I wonder what he’s thinking of out there, knowing from the slouch of his broad shoulders that it can’t be anything good. He has the posture of a haunted man, and a pang of remorse washes over me for feeling like maybe I’d caused him to feel that way, just by being with me.

His breath billows out into the air in steady puffs that make it look like he’s smoking. The tendrils curl from his mouth, dancing through the air in delicate shapes, and then evaporate. His right hand drops down over the arm of the chair, and that’s when I can see he is smoking. The glowing embers of his cigarette struggle against the raw air, their heat unfelt and unappreciated. I didn’t know he smoked–he hadn’t tasted like it or mentioned it all night, but then maybe he reserves that vice for his heaviest thinking.

He stubs out his unfinished cigarette and stands, turning around and walking back into the house. The doorwall clicks shut, and I know that was the sound that woke me up, the latch of the door as it closed behind him. When he enters the room, I gasp, and it is this involuntary sound that finally draws his attention to me. He lifts his head, and his clear blue eyes, so much like ice in the moonlight, lock on mine. I don’t know which one of us is more surprised.

 _Not him_ , I think, my stomach falling to some subterranean depth in the earth, some hole where I will follow it to die.

“Peeta?” I whisper, not trusting my voice above that.

“Katniss?” he replies, his uncertainty mirroring my own, his voice quiet and unnaturally low. “What are you doing here?”

I don’t answer him right away. I can’t. There’s a hole in my chest where my lungs used to be, and although I’m trying to breathe, to force air into my useless body, I find that there’s no oxygen left in the room. Instead, I take in the whole sight of him by the glow of the flickering TV.

I’ve never seen a junkie before. I don’t know what I expected. Someone dangerous maybe, a sneering Sid Vicious, with filthy hair dyed black and matted into spikes, with scars and scabs covering every inch of visible skin. A malnourished, jaundiced, ghostly creature. These are things I expected to see.

But not _him_.

He’s thinner than I remember, having lost some of the muscle he had in high school from wrestling. He has dark circles under his eyes that look like bruises, as if someone had punched him repeatedly, kicked him like some mongrel dog and then left him to die. But, despite these things, he looks a lot like the boy I once knew, the one who disappeared but whom I never forgot. He carries himself with the weight of the world now, but otherwise he looks exactly like the boy I sometimes dream about, even after all these years.

His sweatpants hang low on his waist, and I can see that under his partially zipped hoodie his chest is bare. I don’t know anything about junkies, and I wonder if, even several months into recovery, he would have scars or tracks on his arms, if he needs to always wear long-sleeved shirts now. The edge of a tattoo is visible at the base of his neck, some sort of branch that extends from his chest, and I can make out some scripted letter, too, that looks like an “E.” I think it must be a tattoo for _them_. But I can’t afford to think about that now, not with the way he’s looking at me.

I realize with horror that if I’ve heard all about him, then maybe he’s heard all about me, too.

As I appraise him, he does the same, his eyes falling from my face to the holes in the shirt I’m wearing, the ones that expose a glimpse of my tattoo and the side of one of my breasts. He takes in the sight of my bare legs, tucked away futilely to the side as if to find cover, and we both know it isn’t necessary for me to tell him what I’m doing here. My body burns under his scrutiny; I can feel my skin combust into flames as his eyes rake over me like hot coals. His eyes have narrowed, and where I had been looking at him with morbid fascination and pity, he is looking at me with something akin to anger and disgust.

He says it–practically spits it–even though neither one of us can bear to hear the ugly truth. “So you’re fucking Rye now.” It’s not a question. It’s an indictment, and we both know it.

I still can’t find my voice, and I hate more than ever that he was always the one good with words. My mouth gapes open, stupidly, at a loss. Because yes. I fucked his older brother. I desperately want to escape this place, but I’m rooted here, fixed by Peeta’s hostile stare.

He gives a short, derisive laugh and rips his eyes away from me, like the mere sight of me burns his eyes. “Well, you’re a piece of work, aren’t you?” he smirks, jamming both hands into the pockets of his hoodie.

I find my voice through the resentment and anger bubbling up within me. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

There was a time when his eyes reminded me of a sunny summer’s afternoon, cloudless and breezy and carefree. Now they are as vacant and cold as the winter’s night. “What I mean,” he explains, “is that of all the guys to _fuck_ , you had to pick my brother. I see you’re still making all the right choices, huh, Katniss?”

My cheeks sting from the blow, from the implication that I’m a screwup, that I’ve screwed my way through the whole of Metro Detroit. _That he’s better than me_. “Do you really think you’re in a position to judge people for the decisions they’ve made? I mean, how many people have you slept with, Peeta? And does that include everyone you’ve shared a needle with?” The words pour from my mouth, uncontained venom aimed directly at his heart.

He looks momentarily surprised by my words, like this conversation had taken an unexpected turn. I see the effort it takes him to conceal the surprise and to replace it with a mask of indifference. His forehead is lined in a frown, and when he speaks, he deflects my question. “We’re not talking about me, Katniss. We’re talking about you, sitting here half-naked in my house in the middle of the night.”

I don’t realize that, in my anger, I’ve stood and walked up to him until I’m close enough to take in his familiar features: his soft freckles, long, blonde eyelashes, and slightly clefted chin. He looks so similar to his brother, so alike, they could almost pass as twins. Except that the Peeta I knew was gentle and sweet, funny and kind, whereas Rye was always the arrogant, rowdy, cocky brother. The guy standing in front of me now, though? He’s just an asshole. My heart squeezes in my chest at the thought that this world could make a monster out of Peeta Mellark.

Peeta’s strong jaw clenches and rolls with anger, and the sight of it makes my hands ball into fists at my sides, my knuckles straining and white from the effort it takes to hold them there and not grab him, shake him, pummel him. He wasn’t supposed to be like the rest of them. I’d tried so hard to make sure of that. He wasn’t ever supposed to look at me like this.

And I hate him for it.

“Your house?” I retort. “Pretty sure it’s your brother’s, too.”

He nods. “That’s fair.” His eyes meet mine again, and he adds pointedly, “And he’s welcome to invite any number of women to stay.”

I get what he’s telling me, that I’m just one in a long line, as if that wasn’t something I wasn’t already keenly aware of. It’s all I’ve ever been.

“I just never thought he’d ask _you_ ,” he says quietly, the shock and disappointment evident in his tone.

“Enough already. I get the idea,” I snap, thinking about how disappointed Peeta must be in Rye. How, when he could have anyone, he makes the easy choice. The wrong choice.

Peeta laughs sardonically, a sound that lacks all mirth. He crosses his arms and bites the inside of his cheek, looking intently at the ground. “I think… you have no idea,” he tells me lowly, and then, seeming to reconsider adding something else, he stalks off toward the doorway and down the hallway. Apparently he’s done with me.

He pauses with his hand on the doorknob to his bedroom and says without looking at me, “You need to be gone by the morning… no later than nine.”

I give an indignant huff at the nerve he has to kick me out of the house like an unwanted vagrant on his doorstep. My cheeks sting from the insult, and I hold myself tightly around my waist, desperately trying to prevent myself from falling apart.

He takes a deep breath and then looks at me one more time, a parting glance, before he lobs one last insult at me, “Oh? And, Katniss… If my brother asks you to have another… _sleepover_ … be sure to throw some pants on before you walk around the house. It’s inappropriate, and you never know who you might run into.”

Peeta closes his door behind him without another word. As soon as he’s gone, I rush down the dark hall and up into the attic bedroom, stopping when I reach the foot of Rye’s bed to gaze down at his sleeping form.

He breathes deeply, his broad chest rising and falling in a slow and steady rhythm. His arm still rests over the empty spot where my body had been, as if to hold me close. A narrow shaft of moonlight rests on his face, which is so like his brother’s in almost every way except that it is peaceful and untroubled.

He sleeps like a man who has never known true suffering a day in his life, calmly and evenly and with every assurance that neither the night nor the morning will hold any horror for him.

But I know better. I silently heave and gasp, tears streaming down my face. I hold in my guts by wrapping my arms around my torso, blindly caressing the links of my chain. They bind me together, these mistakes. Every link is a choice I’ve made, a regret I’ve chosen, a correction made–too late–that defines me.

They make me real.

There’s one missing link, I know, for a boy I didn’t fuck. I just couldn’t bear to put him there with the rest. Until tonight I’d carried him somewhere else, somewhere safe.

I crawl silently into bed, lifting Rye’s arm up to slide beneath it and allowing it to fall heavily back onto me. I hope I suffocate under its weight.

Looking intently at his illuminated face, I tell myself that maybe Rye doesn’t have to be a mistake, that maybe he can be different after all. Maybe. I close my eyes and gently run my fingers through his wavy hair and down the length of his jaw. He sighs in his sleep at my touch, the sound breaking the illusion, and I’m thankful for it.

I tell myself I’m glad it’s not _him_.

I try to believe that.


End file.
